<\/p>\n
Gui Zhou, Southern China<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The roads are unfamiliar again for the lady<\/p>\n
She begins to sweep the streets of Gui Zhou and when the pattering of rain,<\/p>\n
Marks the humid beginnings of the fifteenth spring,<\/p>\n
the juddering tears of the clouds;<\/p>\n
A puddle of spilled milk against a carton of blue<\/p>\n
Join her own.<\/p>\n
She puts on her straw hat<\/p>\n
Worn from the sun, wind, and the occasional lightning clap<\/p>\n
That has aged with her.<\/p>\n
Her eyes hunt the crowds, seeking out the young men,<\/p>\n
stepping out from the bus stops and around the street corners<\/p>\n
Her gaze<\/p>\n
lingering on their foreheads.<\/p>\n
Just for a moment, and her eyes flicker,<\/p>\n
Her fingers wrap tighter around the handle,<\/p>\n
Pressing crimson crescents into her palm.<\/p>\n
Her eyes become black whirlpools that reflect the morning sun, bright, before<\/p>\n
They drain away, and her arms move against the broom once more,<\/p>\n
As she had always done.<\/p>\n
She moves, one street to the next, her halting steps shuffling past<\/p>\n
Uneven cobblestone and littered fields that she sweeps clear<\/p>\n
Her broom clutched in the calloused remnants that tell of her past,<\/p>\n
Roughed valleys of harsh jutting bone and the scatter of sunspots,<\/p>\n
Pallid brown seeds planted at the nape of her gnarled fingers,<\/p>\n
the tree that drained its life before its first leaves.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She scours her brain for an answer<\/p>\n
Blaming herself, boring away at old wounds<\/p>\n
If only she\u2019d left the shop earlier on that rainy Wednesday,<\/p>\n
If she didn’t stop to converse with that neighbor<\/p>\n
If only…<\/p>\n
Chasing a dragonfly into waiting hands<\/p>\n
The sky strung together by gray clouds that shielded the sun from the mud and pavement<\/p>\n
And a magicians warped smoke curtain,<\/p>\n
That stole her son, from her.<\/p>\n
A sapling, plucked from the ground and robbed from the earth<\/p>\n
The very soil from where it sprung;<\/p>\n
By the hands of human traffickers<\/p>\n
Fingers tainted by the bodies of a thousand youths<\/p>\n
And the material worth of the discrete rolls<\/p>\n
Passed beneath the tables.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And so she sweeps away with her broom<\/p>\n
The dried leaves, furled and long dead<\/p>\n
Off to the side of the streets<\/p>\n
Her footsteps across China, that of a fine toothed comb<\/p>\n
That spanned a thousand miles<\/p>\n
And in those cities and towns, her eyes sweep the sea of people<\/p>\n
Searching, silently riding the waves of passer-bys<\/p>\n
And within a frothing current of scattered prospects,<\/p>\n
Looking for her son.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Perhaps she would spend the rest of her life<\/p>\n
Riding in the current of the train tracks<\/p>\n
Sweeping the streets of Hei Long Jiang to Chang An.<\/p>\n
Because she cannot bear the \u2018what if\u2019s\u2019 that would follow<\/p>\n
That led up to that day and that moment.<\/p>\n
If she turned her back, stopped holding on<\/p>\n
To the fading picture of a cherubic boy<\/p>\n
With the star shaped birthmark on his forehead.<\/p>\n
Folded into a dozen squares in her back pocket<\/p>\n
That she could have found him<\/p>\n
If only she kept on searching<\/p>\n
and hoping and believing<\/p>\n
That her child may still be out there.<\/p>\n
That her child will return home.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shenyang, Northern China<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The hike to school is long.<\/p>\n
A winding path through the mountain and fields, encrusted<\/p>\n
By a powdering of snow and the weight of hanging ice crystals,<\/p>\n
bending the backs of naked trees<\/p>\n
The backpack weighs her down and hunched her shoulders<\/p>\n
An excuse to look down, eyes trained at her worn shoes,<\/p>\n
Away from the sympathetic glances and the curious chatter<\/p>\n
That flutters away from behind upturned palms.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She blames it on herself.<\/p>\n
For all the times she pushed him around<\/p>\n
Turning the lock on the door before his clumsy fingers<\/p>\n
Could warm the metal\u2019s cool surface<\/p>\n
How she laughed when he fell,<\/p>\n
Face first into frozen sludge<\/p>\n
The product of a late autumn snow storm<\/p>\n
That turned to water as it hit the ground.<\/p>\n
And the times she said that it wasn\u2019t her business<\/p>\n
That he might as well wander off on his own<\/p>\n
Because she couldn\u2019t care less.<\/p>\n
But when she walked back up the trail<\/p>\n
That same path she took everyday up to the schoolhouse<\/p>\n
The frigid air was empty next to her<\/p>\n
She felt small fists tug at the straps of her backpack<\/p>\n
But they were fluttering on their own, pushed frantically<\/p>\n
By the relentless attacks made by the howling wind.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She waits for the phone call,<\/p>\n
That would cut short the harsh reality that it was.<\/p>\n
The subjects of the stories they were warned of<\/p>\n
Children trafficked by the thousands<\/p>\n
Ripped away by shadows, lurking behind street corners<\/p>\n
And backlots and empty playgrounds.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They were only tales to her once.<\/p>\n
When her family notified the government<\/p>\n
Adding his name to the list of thousands<\/p>\n
They harbored hope that he would one day,<\/p>\n
Be found again.<\/p>\n
But she knows the list only grows longer<\/p>\n
The wait will stretch on<\/p>\n
Weeks turn into months and then into years<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Perhaps they will never find him.<\/p>\n
Left on the constant doubt that lingers<\/p>\n
Throughout their lives if he may still be out there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And perhaps one day, long into the future<\/p>\n
The police will find him, living a different life<\/p>\n
With a different name and a different family<\/p>\n
And that they may walk to school hand in hand again.<\/p>\n
That her little brother would return home.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Northern Guangdong, Southeast China<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The buildings are yellowed with age \u2014 and something else<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all the backdrop to someone\u2019s play<\/p>\n
The hollering of schoolchildren below<\/p>\n
In their blue and white uniforms<\/p>\n
The spicy fumes from the Zao Dian shop – the smoke machine<\/p>\n
Wafts and curls its tendrils around the ankles<\/p>\n
Of some stray dog and a construction worker<\/p>\n
Ambling to an early morning shift.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I press my cheeks against the harsh ridges<\/p>\n
Of the gates that enclose me from the outside<\/p>\n
The clamoring of car horns and the rickety kiosks<\/p>\n
Laden with fruits and children\u2019s toys and the<\/p>\n
Cigarette tainted conversations of the taxi drivers<\/p>\n
In their mid afternoon break.<\/p>\n
Raucous story telling mixed with Marlboros stubbed out on glittering car hoods.<\/p>\n
As they leaned on road side fences, shirts rolled up past their chests<\/p>\n
beneath collars that drooped over, wilting petals in the summer heat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I grew up in a world<\/p>\n
Secluded by the harsh black lines of a gate<\/p>\n
The warm fingers of my Grandmother that clung to mine<\/p>\n
Warning me of bad men, that stole children away from<\/p>\n
The breasts of young mothers.<\/p>\n
To stay away from strangers on the roadside,<\/p>\n
Because you never know who they are behind the smiling mask<\/p>\n
Of cooing greetings and friendly banter<\/p>\n
They were scary stories to me<\/p>\n
Sending me hurtling into a waiting duvet.<\/p>\n
Because even when my eyes found its own way<\/p>\n
To paint the world a rosy pink:<\/p>\n
From the way arms tightened around my shoulders when the sun began to fall<\/p>\n
Below the skyline.<\/p>\n
And as I wandered off on my own<\/p>\n
The incessant scolding of my kindergarten teachers,<\/p>\n
The wrinkling in the corner of their eyes and twist of their lips.<\/p>\n
I knew it was real.<\/p>\n
Even for me, the promise of shielded eyes and guarded walls<\/p>\n
Can give away to a drop of water that seeps its way<\/p>\n
Through an unnoticed crack.<\/p>\n
And in the back of our minds it is there.<\/p>\n
A reminder that darkness is constant even in daylight<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When the newspaper slid under the door<\/p>\n
Posted yet again, with a photo of a small child<\/p>\n
Cut through with bolded black letters<\/p>\n
It comes not as a surprise,<\/p>\n
But another call for the numbers that are still rising<\/p>\n
Of child trafficking in China<\/p>\n
The list that only grows in numbers<\/p>\n
rising off forgotten names<\/p>\n
The only things that signified that they ever existed<\/p>\n
A small heartbeat that once dared breathe the air<\/p>\n
And feel the Earth beneath their feet.<\/p>\n
Each year neglected,<\/p>\n
but for the unheard cry of 20,000 mother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madison Xu Gui Zhou, Southern China The roads are unfamiliar again for the lady She begins to sweep the streets of Gui Zhou and when the pattering of rain, Marks the humid beginnings of the fifteenth spring, the juddering tears of the clouds; A puddle of spilled milk against a carton of blue Join her own. She puts on her straw hat Worn from the sun, wind, and the occasional lightning clap That has aged with her. Her eyes hunt the crowds, seeking out the young men, stepping out from the bus stops and around the street corners…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"parent":32,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-83","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/83\/revisions\/84"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}